


Are You Saving Me?

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 06:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8567716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: Joshua Hong must have been the most unlucky person in the entire world. Or maybe he was the luckiest. He was still trying to figure that out, and it wasn't as easy as he'd expected.





	

Joshua Hong thought he had it together—about as much as any university student has it together, at least. He got his assignments done mostly on time, he made it to class with more than just a few seconds to spare, he earned grades that were plenty fine enough to march him along toward a degree, and he only caught himself stress eating a handful of times. He wouldn’t exactly say he was having the time of his life, but he definitely wasn’t drowning in the urge to drop out and get a job waxing floors or hauling boxes or doing whatever it was Jeonghan was sure he could get a job doing if he decided to give up on getting that graphic design degree he was after. There were actually quite a few things Joshua was not doing that Jeonghan was doing.

First and foremost, he wasn’t contemplating withdrawal from the university routinely, staring at his computer every single night at roughly 7:30 p.m. with dead eyes and wondering just how long he could keep this up, but that wasn’t exactly something he could or should have been expected to be doing. He also wasn’t attending any parties or joining any clubs or talking to the people who sat beside him in classes or meeting new friends for lunch. That last one went without saying, of course, because he had yet to make any new friends.

There was that guy he sat next to every day in his accounting class who he took all the group quizzes with, but he never saw him again after they took the final. Jeonghan had been absolutely ruthless when he got back to their apartment after that exam. “You have to at least _try_ to make friends,” he’d whined impatiently once he’d prodded Joshua into telling him that he did not end up asking that guy for his number after all. He whined that exact same thing today, too, several months later and seemingly out of the blue, just as Joshua had been standing in the living room and minding his own business. He groaned and flopped down onto the entire couch so Jeonghan couldn’t have the pleasure of sitting down on it.

“I have plenty of friends,” he fibbed, staring at the ceiling. He was always too weenie to look someone in the eye and lie to them. Jeonghan knew that.

“Bullshit,” Jeonghan spat, sitting down on Joshua’s knees and evoking a sensation in his tendons that not even serial liars could call pleasant. “You only know eight people on this whole campus.” He watched Joshua wriggle in pain with muted amusement shining in his eyes before standing back up to let Joshua curl his abused legs in to comfort them. “And seven of them are me.”

“Who’s the last one?” Joshua asked, half bitter and half genuinely curious, arms still wrapped protectively around his shins. Jeonghan shrugged like he didn’t know and was only assuming Joshua knew one other person, which was more than likely the case.

“The Quizno’s guy, probably,” he said at last, and Joshua heaved out an irritated breath. It probably was the stupid Quizno’s guy; Joshua was in there too much for them not to recognize each other’s faces by now. It wasn’t his fault it was the most convenient campus dining location in relation to their apartment complex. Not that he was about to readily admit that, though.

“I’m not in there _that_ much.”

“What was his name again?” Jeonghan stroked his chin, full of thought. “Daniel?” Joshua raised his eyebrows.

“Not even close? It’s Toby.” Jeonghan smiled smugly. _Fuck_ , Joshua told himself. _You really let yourself walk right into that_.

“You were saying?” He groaned and stretched his legs back out as Jeonghan waltzed gleefully into the kitchen.

It wasn’t like Joshua hadn’t tried. For the first few weeks of freshman year, he really was sure he could make at least one friend at the church group he started attending, but the results were less than stellar. They were all intensely obnoxious, and if that wasn’t enough, they all wanted to meet up for lunch every single day at the church building. This was a problem for many reasons, namely that the church building was far and musty and probably needed to be condemned in the first place, so Joshua never elected to join them, but then he got peppered by texts asking why he didn’t come and brutally shunned at their evening meetings for not going. He had to stop attending altogether after three weeks.

He’d tried going to regular church service, too, but as it turned out, he was way too lazy to haul himself out of bed on Sunday mornings, much less once football season started. Not that he ever went to the games, but Jeonghan always went to them, and he would get back after post-game get-togethers very late and very loud with the dire need to wake Joshua up on purpose (let it be known that the noise always had him stirring, but Jeonghan insisted on shaking him roughly into consciousness) to tell him about the most amazing play of the game. Half the time, he could hardly even find the words to articulate it since he didn’t really know football, so he would just struggle for half an hour before abandoning the effort and going to bed anyway.

Joshua thought that was the absolute most insufferable part of having him as a roommate, and had he known a single other person to live with, that alone would have sealed the deal on their separation as inhabitants of the same space. Unfortunately, he did not know a single other person, so he just had to deal with it until his 2 a.m. body language was hostile enough that Jeonghan stopped waking him up.

Rooming with Jeonghan wasn’t the worst decision he had ever made, but it was certainly a far cry from the best. The first time he ever got home from class to find Jeonghan lying face down on his bed and blasting Evanescence so loudly that their RA chewed them out for it later—the third week of freshman year, two days before he decided never to go to church group again—he wondered if maybe he would have been better off just going to a local school and living at home, but he got over that pretty quickly when he remembered how his dad used to knock on his door every thirteen minutes and ask what he was up to.

He rolled lethargically off the couch and onto the floor just as Jeonghan slid back in from the kitchen. There were a lot of things that were nicer about living in an apartment instead of a regular, single dorm room; most importantly, Jeonghan could now close his door when he blasted Evanescence. Joshua also greatly enjoyed the amount of space he had to lie around and procrastinate, including this spot on the floor in front of the couch, which was one of his favorites. He mainly just liked checking to see if Jeonghan had dropped any change and accidentally kicked it under the couch, and he was just about to do that when he felt a set of toes digging into his side.

“Can I help you with something?” he grunted, turning his head to survey the underside of the couch. It looked like there were at least three quarters down there and a few other coins of various sizes. There was also a nice-looking pen. He made a mental note to grab everything once Jeonghan left.

“You should come with me to the club meeting in half an hour,” Jeonghan commanded more than suggested, unrelenting as he pressed his foot into the softest part of Joshua’s stomach he could find. “It’s movie night.”

“What club?” he asked with a sigh. What he wanted to say was, _Leave so I can steal your lost change_ , but he figured it might not be in his best interests to reveal his habit of stealing Jeonghan’s lost change. He also didn’t want the foot in his side to get any more forceful than it was already.

“It doesn’t matter what club it is,” Jeonghan informed him, “because the movie we’re watching is _Shrek_. I’m not letting you say no, so you can either say yes now or give up on resisting in ten minutes.”

“I don’t wanna,” Joshua huffed, pulling his lips into a pout and crossing his arms over his chest. He saw a nerve snap behind Jeonghan’s eyes—he always hated it when Joshua did that—and suddenly the foot was exerting 30 times more pressure than before.

“Don’t you dare act cute,” he snarled, mouth dropping from an easy grin to an unforgiving line. “You love _Shrek_ and you totally want to come and I’m not letting your fear of encountering new people keep you in tonight.”

“I’m not _afraid_ of encountering new people,” Joshua declared in resentment, sitting upright and shoving Jeonghan’s leg away. “I just do not enjoy being forced to do it. As in the way you are currently forcing me.”

“So if you admit that you’re already being forced, does that mean you’re giving in right now?” Joshua heaved himself from the ground with a prolonged exhale, thoughts of the quarters under the couch still number one in the hierarchy of his mind.

“I’ll go put my jacket on.” He made sure to be as glum as possible when he said it, but Jeonghan still cheered.

It was probably better that they went together given how their apartment was kind of not really that close to actual campus and the sun kept setting earlier and earlier, but Joshua was still resolutely bitter about being forced into going even if it did decrease the likelihood of one of them getting caught unawares and stabbed or robbed or both. Naturally, the club meeting was being held in the absolute farthest building possible, so Joshua had to deal with not only the riveting excitement of walking through a desolate campus after classes were long over, but also the soul-enveloping joy of his shins feeling like they were aflame when they actually did arrive.

Jeonghan introduced Joshua to every single club member who was present when they arrived, but Joshua didn’t really bother to learn their names on account of having less than no desire to ever come to another of this club’s meetings in his life. _It’s only for Shrek_ , he told himself, even though he knew that Jeonghan always made him out to be a way bigger fan of _Shrek_ than he was in actuality. He never really understood why that was.

“Yeah,” Jeonghan whispered to a fellow club member not very covertly, “he loves _Shrek_ , so he begged me to bring him.” One look at Joshua’s face would have been plenty to tell anyone in the room that was blatantly untrue, but none of them seemed interested in a fact check, so the guy to whom Jeonghan was speaking and the six other people who were listening in just nodded like they 100% got why he wanted to come to _Shrek_ night so badly.

The movie really could not get into the player fast enough. Jeonghan emphasized at least nine times how Joshua was probably the loneliest person on campus with only eight friends (seven Jeonghans and one Toby), and frankly, Joshua was extremely tired of hearing about how horrendously sad Jeonghan thought his life was. The other club members quietly promised to befriend him, but Joshua did not in any way want their lousy friendship. All he wanted was for _Shrek_ to be put on the damn screen so he could watch it and go home.

Eventually, the DVD was inserted, and for 95 minutes, Joshua totally forgot that he was in the middle of a pity pool of which Jeonghan was the lifeguard. He did notice, though, that he was the only one who sang along to every word of _All Star_ , which probably didn’t do much to convince anyone present that he wasn’t a _Shrek_ superfan, but by the time they all could have used a little change, he was too invested to quit.

At long last, the credits began rolling, and they were released to go home. Jeonghan decided to stay around and chat for longer than Joshua was willing, so he abandoned him in favor of getting a head start on the walk home. Several minutes later, as he trudged through the desolate campus, he was greatly regretting his decision to go alone, but he was already too far to wimp out and turn back, so he just kept going and hoped that he wouldn’t encounter anyone before he made it back to the apartment safely.

He did encounter someone, though, not more than five minutes from the front door of the apartment building, standing with their face obscured by a black hood and hands concealed completely in large pockets. He told himself it was just someone out for a walk late at night, but that didn’t stop a weird chill from crawling up his spine, slow and heavy and gut-wrenching. The person stood across the street a good ways down, and it was a lot harder for Joshua to convince himself it was somebody going for an innocent stroll when they just stood there doing nothing, slightly aback from the streetlight. When he started getting nearer, the silhouette moved to cross over to his side of the street, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stood there resolutely, a human wall. One hand slid out of its pocket, and Joshua’s heart turned to lead and dropped into his stomach when he saw light glint dangerously off something being grasped in its fingers.

_Knife_. Not _That’s a knife_. Not _They have a knife._ His mind was racing too fast for him to put together complete sentences, heart beating too hard for him to think of anything else save for the one word repeating through his mind over and over and over again. _Knife knife knife knife knife_. He thought he might throw up, felt something sick in his gut that split his body in two. Everything in his head ground to a halt when he saw the dark figure take a step forward, foot heavy on the sidewalk. He wanted to run, to sprint across the street and straight past until he made it into his apartment, to lock the door and barricade it with everything he could get his hands on, but he couldn’t. He wanted to scream, to cry, to call for help, but he couldn’t. Every single muscle in his body was frozen, and all he could do was wait until his attacker reached him.

He didn’t want to die. Oh god, he did not want to die, and he was about to. He was about to die here on the street with no one to care but Jeonghan and his parents whenever they found out, and this murderer was going to run free because there wouldn’t be anyone to stop them from killing him and there was no one around to stop it now. He wished he could call his mom one more time, call his dad, thank Jeonghan for being the friend that he was. He wished he could escape this somehow without a blemish, but his legs were sinking into the concrete with every single step the assailant took forward, and it was far too late to relearn how to run.

“Give me everything you have,” the person called gruffly from a few feet away, continuing their forward progress. Joshua’s brain was working in overdrive, but he couldn’t get himself to think, couldn’t figure out if he’d ever heard the voice before or what the words it said even meant, so he just stood there in paralyzing fear while they grew closer, closer, until he could really see the blade of the knife, see just how sharp and present it was, tightly clasped and aimed straight at him. He still couldn’t move, not even when he felt its tip prod the center of his chest.

He was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t remember where his wallet was or how to even grab it in the first place, and he was going to die. After startlingly few moments, it became very apparent that there was no patience behind that knife, and the arm holding it reared back and drove it forward, straight into Joshua’s stomach, and he died.

But he didn’t die. When he saw the knife coming forward, he felt something burning on his back, impossibly hot but only just before the brink of painful, two hands made of fire pressing down directly over his shoulder blades. His nerves caught on fire and his vision went white, and when he could see again, he was fine. He couldn’t have been fine, but he inexplicably was.

There was nobody in a hood wielding a knife in front of him, and his stomach was perfectly uninjured, no long scar running across the front of his coat where a blade had sliced it. He wasn’t even on the street anymore; the only sight before him as he stood in a hallway bathed in light was the door to his apartment, securely locked and undisturbed since he and Jeonghan had left earlier that evening. Once he remembered how to use his hands, he fished his key out and unlocked the door, pushing it open with wary slowness and turning on the lights.

Everything was exactly as it had been before, down to the three quarters and company under the couch that he finally had the occasion to grab, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. All he could do was sit on the couch and stare at the dark television screen until Jeonghan barged back through the front door with excessive clamor.

“Hey, you _ditcher_ ,” he said accusatorily, and he looked like he was about to continue with another jab, but the blank look Joshua was giving him stopped him in his tracks, made his crooked sneer falter. “Whoa, are you okay?”

“I’m… okay,” Joshua said slowly, tongue very lazy in getting it out. He thought he should tell Jeonghan how he almost got stabbed, but he didn’t. He couldn’t, not when he didn’t know how it was only _almost_ and thus couldn’t explain it to Jeonghan. “You dropped some quarters under the couch,” he told him instead. Jeonghan quirked a brow, eyes flooding with worry.

“Thanks for telling me,” he ventured uncertainly. He observed Joshua for a long time before speaking again. “I didn’t realize making you come to movie night would upset you so much,” he said at last. “I won’t do it again, I swear.” Joshua shook his head and rose from the couch.

“It’s fine,” he said, clasping one of Jeonghan’s shoulders in his hand. “You know I like _Shrek_.” He felt worlds better just to be physically feeling that there was someone else there, that he was alive and still breathing and still able to go on. “Thanks for being a good roommate,” he said as soon as it occurred to him that he ought to. “I think I’m gonna go to bed.” Jeonghan’s eyebrows crept higher, eyes somewhere between confusion and panic.

“Are you sure I don’t need to be worried?” he asked, and Joshua was not at all sure, but he nodded regardless.

“Get your quarters before I take them myself,” was all he said before heading into his bedroom. He was out before his head even hit the pillow.

His brain worked very hard to convince itself that he’d somehow dreamed up the whole thing, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was no way he could have imagined that crushing feeling inside his chest, no way to explain how he could still distinctly remember the feeling of two hands on his back, burning and soothing in the same space. Even so, he did his best to wipe it from his mind and pretend it never happened, because he was okay, and that was what was important.

A few days later, he bumped into one of Jeonghan’s friends from his club—whom he did not recall the name of, of course—and was coerced into having lunch with him, so he was torn brutally from his homeward route and instead commenced a hike to the other end of campus where anonymous club member’s favorite restaurant _of_ _all time_ was. Joshua hoped he just meant out of the campus dining locations.

Jeonghan’s club buddy was right in the middle of a sentence about midterms or something, but Joshua wasn’t paying attention because he was getting _so_ close to narrowing down the list of letters his name began with to five or six. When they reached a crosswalk, Joshua took a look both ways like a good pedestrian, and seeing that the only vehicle in sight was a car slowing down as it came up to the stop sign, he proceeded across the street.

Only it must not have been slowing down like he thought, because it didn’t stop at the stop sign like it should have. It kept going clean past the thick white line painted on the asphalt and slammed right into him. He heard an alarmed shriek from his companion on the sidewalk telling him to stop, but it was already too late.

But was it really too late? Of course not. At the moment he should have been mowed over by the SUV and felt his bones get decimated by the force, he instead felt that same sensation of hands on his back, just as hot as they had been the first time, a confirmation of what he already knew had really occurred. Just like the first time, his vision went completely white, and when he could see again, he was staring toward the street from the other side, watching the car that had absolutely hit him drive off without incident. He felt a tug at his shirt and turned around to find Jeonghan’s friend from club already behind him and giving him a look that said _Let’s get a move on_. Joshua had the sudden recollection that his name was Danny as he tailed him the rest of the way to the restaurant.

The food there was nothing but a travesty of decent cuisine, even more so than some of the other places on campus, and Joshua thought Danny was an absolute moron for thinking it was anything better than obnoxiously mediocre. He got some plain sandwich with dry meat and tough bread and was in the middle of choking it down when he heard someone call, “Oh, hey, David!” from a few tables over, to which his lunch mate responded with an enthusiastic wave. At least he was sort of close.

A few more minutes of trying to choke it down later, he felt something get caught in his throat, and without any warning at all, he was really, legitimately choking on it. If he weren’t so busy panicking about his inability to breathe, he would have wondered why exactly he’d had such horrendous luck lately, but as the situation had it, he was very busy panicking about his inability to breathe, so there was no time for him to even begin wondering why the universe seemed to have just begun enacting its plot to off him. He raised his hands to his neck frantically, praying that David would be hasty in giving him the Heimlich, but David wasn’t paying any attention, instead deeply immersed in conversation with the actual friend who had called his name just minutes ago.

He slapped the table a few times to get David’s attention, but it didn’t matter, because before David even turned his gaze, he felt hands on his back again, gently warm rather than burning hot like before, and then he could breathe, the chunk of sandwich not only dislodged but dissipated completely, like he’d never been eating it in the first place. David turned to him and started talking in a manner that very much implied he had no idea the person sharing his table had almost just died, so Joshua assumed either he was once again the only one who knew what happened or David was oblivious to a worrying degree. He introduced his random friend, but Joshua didn’t pay an ounce of attention to the name.

It was useless to wonder why so many bad things kept happening to him, and it was equally useless to wonder why he kept escaping them unscathed, but that wasn’t quite enough to deter him from wondering both anyway. Jeonghan asked him several times why he seemed so stressed, but there was no real way to explain that would make any sense, so he just assured him that he was fine until he quit asking. He tried forcing it out of his mind, too, but that ultimately failed, so he just resigned to being completely consumed by stress and worry for the rest of his life. He considered blasting Evanescence to take his mind off it, but that definitely would have aroused too much of Jeonghan’s suspicion.

On a Saturday after a few more nearly-fatal instances, all off which he escaped with nary a scratch, a knock came at their front door at an ungodly hour in the morning. In reality, ungodly meant 9 o’clock, but Jeonghan sure made it seem like it was the asscrack of dawn with all the grumbling he did on his way to answer it. Joshua was awake already, but he pretended not to be to evade the responsibility of opening the door; to his great surprise, he was roused anyway.

“Josh?” came Jeonghan’s voice, uncertain and almost concerned. “Your friend is here.” The way he said it was riddled with skepticism, spelled out very clearly that he did not foresee Joshua ever having a friend stop by. Joshua was surprised, too. There wasn’t a single person he knew who could possibly be stopping by to see him, not a single person who even knew his name, let alone where he lived, but he got out of bed and stalked to the front door anyway.

“We were in the same psychology class,” he heard an unfamiliar voice explain as he rounded the corner. A pair of eyes lit up brightly when they came to rest on him, wide smile blooming beneath. “Yo, Josheroni! What’s going on?”

“You didn’t tell me you made a friend in your psychology class,” Jeonghan whispered as discreetly as possible when he got closer, careful not to let the guy standing outside hear. Joshua didn’t do anything but shrug.

The only reason he hadn’t told him about making a friend in psychology class was that he hadn’t made a friend in psychology class, and even if he had, it certainly hadn’t been this guy. He had broad shoulders and a sturdy-looking body, a messy drizzle of almost grayish black hair that fell to his eyebrows, and the biggest, most comforting smile Joshua had ever seen in his life. He would have remembered meeting someone like that in psychology class.

“Man, it’s been forever,” the guy remarked, and Joshua supposed that was accurate enough considering this was the first time they had ever met each other. “How are you?”

“I’m… alright,” he said slowly, hesitantly. He was on the verge of asking him who on earth he was and why he was masquerading as one of the friends Joshua certainly did not have, but before he could get to it, a large hand clapped on his shoulder, impossibly hot despite the chill air in the morning, comforting despite the unreal heat. It stirred something in his chest, made his back heat up exactly like it had all those times before, and he saw in the other guy’s eyes that he could tell Joshua noticed, so he changed his question to, “Why don’t you come in?”

His spine felt weird when the hand unclamped itself from his shoulder, but he did his best to walk normally into the living room to take a seat on the couch. The stranger sat down beside him, and Jeonghan sat in the chair next to the coffee table, very alert and chipper now despite his earlier curses on “whoever the damn hell is knocking on the door so god damn early.”

“Are you going to introduce me?” he asked at Joshua, but his eyes were definitely more on the other guy. It was plain on his face that he was thrilled to see Joshua really did have another friend on campus, and it was about to crush his heart to pieces in ten seconds when Joshua had to reveal that he couldn’t actually introduce this man because he was just as unacquainted with him as Jeonghan was.

“Oh, sorry,” the guy piped up before he could, sparing Jeonghan’s heart if only for a moment longer. “I’m Seungcheol.” He leaned forward and gave an admirably firm handshake. If Jeonghan noticed how ridiculously hot his hands were, he made no indication of it.

“Pleasure meeting you,” he said, punctuating the sentence with a long yawn that turned into three more. “Well,” he said, grogginess retaking him in full force without warning, “I’d love to stay and chat, but I think I’ll be heading back to bed.” He got up promptly after that and strode back to his bedroom with a greater sense of purpose than he typically had when going somewhere, bare feet squeaking over the hardwood.

“Who are you?” Joshua whispered once he was fully out of earshot, only after he’d heard the sound of the door being shut.

“I’m Seungcheol from your psychology class,” he prattled back cheerfully, “and I just had a really bad falling out with my roommate, so I’d be so grateful if you let me crash here for a while until we can patch things up.” He stared into Joshua’s eyes for a good while, calm but intense, and paranoia started to creep up. Maybe he had actually made a very handsome friend named Seungcheol in psychology class and just forgotten about it, which would make him the worst person on the entire face of the earth if they’d been close to the degree where he felt like he could ask to stay at Joshua’s apartment for an indefinite length of time.

“You weren’t… actually in my psychology class, were you?” he ventured unsurely. The smile on Seungcheol’s face dropped from a wide beam to a more relaxed grin as he spoke again.

“No, don’t worry.” He let his hand find Joshua’s knee, and it was still hot, still flooded him with relief. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how a lot of bad things have been happening to you lately, right?” Of course he’d noticed. When you go from having a peaceful life to almost dying three times in one week, it doesn’t typically elude your attention.

“Do you know why…?” There was a little bit of hope welling up inside him, but Seungcheol did not hesitate to extinguish it.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t,” he said, and Joshua thought he sounded genuinely regretful. “I wish I did.”

“Then… who are you actually? Why do you know _me_? And why are you here? And why do—” Seungcheol cut him off with a full laugh that made his chest rattle and his heartbeat stutter.

“One at a time,” he said gently. “Most importantly, I guess, I’m here to protect you.” Joshua parted his lips to ask another question, but all it took was Seungcheol quirking his eyebrow to stop him. “You’ve heard of guardian angels before, right?” He gestured so his own chest. “That’s me.”

“You’re my guardian angel?” Seungcheol nodded slowly, but Joshua still couldn’t make sense of it. Weren’t guardian angels supposed to look like actual angels, tall and winged and shiny? And how come he didn’t even know he had one in the first place? “You’re lying,” he said, and Seungcheol’s jaw dropped. “Tell me the truth.”

“You can’t honestly think I’m lying,” he sputtered. “Can’t you feel it when I touch you? It’s the same as all the times I saved you. I _know_ you feel it.” His fingertips pressed a little more heavily into Joshua’s knee for emphasis, and it was definitely true, but that didn’t mean it made sense. “I’m here to keep you safe, just like I always have been.”

“But if you were keeping me safe before,” Joshua began at length, thoughts drawing together in gradual conclusions, “then why are you physically here now? I’ve never seen you before.”

“Like I said, I don’t know.” He shrugged and clasped his hands together over his mouth, leaving Joshua’s knee feeling extra cold. “I mean, I came because you seem to be in a lot of danger these days and it’s easier to keep you safe if I’m actually here, but I don’t know why that is.” Words rolled around behind his eyes while he thought of what to say. “It might just be bad luck, but regardless, I need to make sure nothing happens to you until it’s passed.”

“Why?” Seungcheol looked at him like he couldn’t believe the question.

“Because I’m your guardian angel. Why else?” He scoffed and leaned back into the sofa. “What good is a guardian angel that doesn’t guard?” Joshua thought there was probably something inherently good about being an angel in the first place, but he decided not to mention it. “Anyway, I need to stay as close to you as possible until whatever this is passes, so you need to tell Jeonghan the same story I told you.”

“What was that again?” Seungcheol sighed.

“That I’m your friend from psychology class who’s had a falling out with his roommate and needs somewhere to stay until things have been resettled.” He leveled his gaze, and Joshua noticed he had very long eyelashes that fit his face well and made him seem prettier and softer than he would have from a distance, wondered if that was just because he was an angel or if only some of them were so good-looking. Asking might have been a little awkward, though, so he decided against it. “Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Joshua said quietly, sifting through the billion and one other questions swirling around in his head. There were so many things he felt compelled to ask, but he was cursed with only one mouth, so he had to pick through one at a time until he had it all figured out. There could never be enough minutes for him to ask everything. “So, have you, like, been my guardian angel my whole life, or just recently?”

“Just recently,” he said, and Joshua must not have hidden his surprise very well, because he continued with, “I know, right? It seems like it would make sense for you to have the same one the whole time, but I was only born recently, so they transferred your old one and gave you to me.” Joshua felt incredibly weird about what appeared to be a young adult man describing himself as ‘born recently,’ but there was no time to dwell on that when he still had so much more to ask.

“Are all angels this handsome, or is it just you?” he rushed out accidentally. He really thought he’d tucked that particular question a little farther back in his mind, and he would have loved to die and go to heaven at that exact moment, but Seungcheol laughed again, and it was enough to restore his will to live but not quite enough to stop his face from staining a vibrant red.

“Thank you,” was Seungcheol’s only answer instead of a legitimate response. “Do you have any other questions for me?” He definitely did, but he was too embarrassed to remember what they were, so all he could do was sit still for a few minutes and bring to mind only the beginnings of them.

“Well, do you have any questions for me?” he stammered eventually. “Like, about earth, or about me…” He trailed off when he saw Seungcheol already shaking his head.

“I know everything about you,” Seungcheol informed him warmly. “It’s part of my job.” Something about it made Joshua both more nervous and more relaxed at the same time, and he wished Seungcheol were a little more plain-looking. “And you live here on earth, so I gather as much as I need to know from watching over you.”

“Oh.” Joshua’s throat felt a little dry, and he wasn’t sure why or if he even wanted to know, so he just nodded once. Seungcheol pressed his palm flat on Joshua’s back, right between his shoulder blades. It was a little comforting to know he wasn’t getting any colder.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he began, “but I’ll be here if you have any questions. I swear I’ll keep you safe.”

Something about just the timbre of his voice was calming, like a warm bath or a blanket fresh out of the dryer, and it compelled Joshua to lean into him. He didn’t even realize he was doing it until he felt a second strong arm wrap around his back and then all he could smell was clean wool, face stuffed wholly into Seungcheol’s sweater, right in the crook of his shoulder. It didn’t make sense to feel so unbelievably safe in someone’s arms, but then again, maybe it did, if that someone was your guardian angel. He took in a deep breath without retreating and hoped Jeonghan wouldn’t wake up any time soon.

“So,” Jeonghan said later that day when Seungcheol had finally left them alone for a minute to go to the bathroom. There was a very brittle sting in his voice that said he’d been waiting all day to start whatever conversation he was starting, but he didn’t get past the first word, just let it hang in the air while he wiggled his eyebrows with gusto.

“So,” Joshua echoed in response, and Jeonghan pressed his lips into a line without delay, deeply dissatisfied with the answer to the question he hadn’t bothered to ask any of. The way he always assumed people would spout out answers before he even had to expend the energy to ask the question was another thing Joshua wasn’t fond of, and he used it at least once to justify reclaiming the change under the couch.

“So why didn’t you tell me about Seungcheol?” he asked, foot tapping against the kitchen tile without patience. Joshua drew out a long sigh to give himself time to come up with an excuse. He was never much for fabricating quick lies.

“I didn’t think it was worth talking about,” was the half-assed explanation he ended up with, and just one look at Jeonghan’s mug revealed he was not buying any quantity of it. His mouth slid slowly into a smirk, eyes twinkling in a fashion exceptionally more unnerving than usual.

“You’re so transparent,” he asserted with a fond huff, and Joshua wasn’t exactly sure where that was going until he continued with, “Just look at him. You don’t want me to embarrass you and ruin your chances, right?” He gave a thumbs up and a quick wink that wasn’t reassuring. “Don’t worry, I won’t get in the way.”

Joshua shaded his eyes with a hand and looked pointedly at the countertop. “I’m sorry, but what are you implying right now?”

“I’m not _implying_ anything,” Jeonghan informed him. “I am _telling you_ in my _very expert opinion_ that I am highly aware you _totally dig him_ and am 100% behind you on it.”

“Nobody says _totally dig_ anymore.” Joshua casually elected to ignore the accusation in favor of attacking the hip and happening twenty-something jargon. “Nobody has said that since, like, 2008.”

“Well, I say it, and I’m fucking awesome, so it must still be cool.” His knuckles rapped against the counter harshly to draw Joshua’s attention back. “Anyway, don’t try to distract me. I know exactly what’s going on here.”

“You know what? Let yourself believe that.” Jeonghan guffawed.

“No amount of you trying to make me think I’m wrong will make me think I’m wrong.” He inched closer eagerly, eyes bright and excited. “Is that why you’ve been so on edge lately? Were you scared because you thought I’d mess up your beautiful love boat?”

“No,” Joshua deadpanned. Jeonghan remained unconvinced.

“You’re an awful liar.” _And you’re an awful judge of whether someone is lying_. “But it’s A-okay, my man. Leave it to Captain Yoon to help get things on a smooth course.”

“No offense,” Joshua groaned, backing away with all the subtlety he could manage, “but I don’t trust Captain Yoon as far as I can throw him. My regular, non-love boat is doing just fine.”

“You seem to be forgetting you can throw Captain Yoon extremely far. He’s as light as a feather.”

“You can’t throw feathers far at all. They hit terminal velocity too fast to go anywhere.” The scowl on Jeonghan’s face was its own reward. “Captain Yoon should take a physics class sometime.”

“You’re a damn nerd.”

“Hey, I’m back,” Seungcheol interjected before Joshua had a chance for rebuttal, meandering back into the room and scratching the back of his head. “What are we talking about?”

“Oh, welcome back,” Jeonghan greeted way too noisily. Seungcheol raised his eyebrows in thorough suspicion but kept his mouth shut anyway to let Jeonghan continue. “We were just talking about dinner. Do you have anywhere you want to eat, since you’re our guest now?”

“Wherever Joshy wants to go is fine with me.”

A strangled breath got caught in Jeonghan’s throat when he turned to Joshua with wide eyes and a broad grin. Joshua really wished Seungcheol would have called him anything else; he could see roughly one thousand individual cogs through Jeonghan’s eyes turning at alarming rates, and he did not like the look of them.

“Where do you want to go, _Joshy_?” Jeonghan asked with extra emphasis, voice buttery, and Joshua felt morally obligated not to respond to that name, but he had two people staring at him expectantly, and that forced an answer out of him in no time flat.

“Yeah,” Seungcheol explained later over dinner, “he let me borrow his notes whenever I fell asleep in class. Josho here is the only reason I passed.” Joshua watched Jeonghan take down the third nickname of the day in a mental notebook and told himself not to forget to tell Seungcheol to stop calling him nicknames.

“Isn’t he just such a great guy?” Jeonghan said with enthusiasm, beaming first at Seungcheol, then turning to Joshua with a nod. Joshua shook his head, but Jeonghan remained undeterred. “Only I wish he would have invited you over sometime.” He clutched his fork a little more tightly, spearing through asparagus in sudden anger. “You know, like someone who’s actually _considerate_ and _cares about his friends_.” The abrupt transition from praise to criticism left Seungcheol’s jaw a little slack. Joshua sighed. Jeonghan couldn’t lay his antics to rest for even a single evening, it seemed. “But whatever!” He smiled again, and Seungcheol cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“I mean,” he began uncertainly, “he was a lot more helpful to me than I was to him. It was more like he dragged me through the class and less like we were real pals or anything, so I get it.”

“I didn’t really think of it like that, though,” Joshua said before taking a sip of his water and immediately choking on it because why in hell did he sound so genuine, and more importantly, why did he feel like he was telling the truth instead of participating in an elaborately falsified backstory? Seungcheol looked at him with wide eyes that probably meant _why are you throwing my story under the bus_ , but Jeonghan probably took them as meaning _oh my gosh, bro, I never knew you felt that way_. He took in a deep breath to conjure the next leg of the fib. “It’s just that you were always so busy, so I never knew when was a good time.” They let out an exhale of relief in perfect sync.

Jeonghan got excited by the seeming development. A little too excited, apparently, because he reached forward with a lot of energy and knocked over his freshly refilled glass of water. He didn’t just knock it to the side and catch it before too much spilled, either. He knocked it fully off the table, spilled the entire glass on his pants in the process, and sent it crashing to the floor with a pleasing sound that everyone in the restaurant seemed to pick up on. At least sixty eyes rested on the three of them as Jeonghan gazed at the fallen glass in shock.

“Son of a… _my mother_ ,” he said very slowly through gritted teeth. “Which would be me.” A forced and almost angry-looking smile crossed his face as he tore his gaze back. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom and see how well the hand dryer works on denim. Don’t get embarrassed and leave without me.” Once he’d plucked the cup from the ground and replaced it on the table, he sprinted for the restroom, and to Joshua’s great relief, all the eyes followed him.

“So,” he began after a few minutes, “is there nothing, like, morally questionable about an angel telling lies?” Seungcheol stared at him for a good minute, eyes intent and very pretty, and Joshua wished he would cut it out and just answer before he started to focus on exactly how pretty.

“Are you saying you want me to tell Jeonghan who I really am?” he asked at length. “I can. I just thought you would prefer keeping it a secret.”

“No, I do, don’t get me wrong,” he said hastily. “I’m just wondering if there’s, like, an angelic moral code, or maybe some rule that you’re not allowed to lie or something.”

“There aren’t as many rules as you would think,” was all Seungcheol said, wide grin pushing his cheeks to their limits. “Besides, the most important thing is that I keep you safe.” He sat quiet awhile before adding, “It’s good that you have someone who cares about you like Jeonghan does.”

“He has his moments.” His eyes snapped wide open. “Oh, before I forget, please stop calling me nick—”

“Turns out the hand dryer is not great with denim,” Jeonghan announced as he sped back to the table. “You guys hurry up and finish eating so we can get the hell out of here and I can put on some dry pants.”

“But we didn’t spill your water,” Joshua pondered softly, moving his fork around in lazy circles over his plate. “Why should we have to suffer over your mistake?”

“You forced my hand.”

“Funnily enough, I can’t seem to recall letting go of my fork.” Joshua shrugged. “Sucks.” Jeonghan scowled.

“Well, I’ll eat a little faster for you.” _Of course you will_ , Joshua thought. Damn angels and their niceness.

At the hands of peer pressure, Joshua finished eating quickly, too, and they were home before Jeonghan could get out too many more words on the chaffing happening on his thighs. Even though it was hardly past 9, he retired to his room to hit the hay, and not seeing much else to do, Joshua fetched Seungcheol some blankets for the couch and sent himself to bed, too, even though he knew he would wake up at some ungodly hour as punishment for going to bed so early.

Exactly as predicted, he did wake up at some ungodly hour. The entire room was pitch dark, not a sliver of moonlight creeping in through the blinds. He felt uneasy, felt almost like he could feel something in there with him, like he could hear breathing or somehow see a silhouette even though there was no light to allow it. His eyes searched the room for the light of his alarm clock, but they didn’t find it. All they found was a silver glint, impossible but somehow still there, metallic and sharp and terrifying. A blade.

His heartbeat spiked in a single second, raced as hard as it could against the influx of questions. How could someone possibly have gotten in? How could he see the knife even though there wasn’t any light, even though there was no way for it to be there in the first place? Where was Seungcheol to save him now? But none of those questions mattered any more than he had answers for them. He sat frozen in place, clutching tightly to the covers, as the knife moved closer and closer and closer. The tip of it stopped right in front of his eyes, and he felt every cell in his body freeze and burn simultaneously. Closer and closer, and he could feel it on his skin. Closer.

Tears were streaming down his face when he woke up, and his throat felt raw and hollow. He only took a moment to breathe in relief, because he quickly noticed the hints of moonlight coming in through the window tracing an outline against the murky darkness of the bedroom. Quiet breathing was coming from somewhere other than his mouth, and it made him sit bolt upright immediately, stomach clutching.

“Who’s there?” he croaked, reaching for something, anything. Anything he could use to fight them off.

“It’s me.”

Seungcheol. Joshua never thought just a voice could calm him down so much, but there he was, immediately okay after only two brief words. He felt a palm come to rest over his knee, and heat flooded through him, made his eyes start welling up again. His hands moved out into the dark to grope around until they hit something warm and alive, and they pulled it in with all the strength and urgency they had. Seungcheol’s arms moved to circle around Joshua’s back, and he felt secure only when fingertips pressed down near his spine.

“Where were you?” he gargled, and he sounded pathetic even to his own ears, but Seungcheol didn’t mention it.

“It was just a dream,” he mumbled instead, vibrations traveling through Joshua’s shoulder and up his neck, calm and low. “You’re okay.” His hand rubbed soothing circles into his back with a mesmerizing rhythm. “You’re okay.”

Maybe it was the way Joshua was unyieldingly leaning onto him for support, but Seungcheol didn’t let him go for a long while, and maybe it was still just the way he’d been unyieldingly leaning onto him for support, but Joshua didn’t want him to. He clamped a hand on his wrist when Seungcheol tried to leave and scooted over to the side of his bed to make room.

“I’ll feel safer,” he began to explain weakly, but Seungcheol must not have needed much convincing, because he climbed in without anything else. Maybe their couch was just that uncomfortable. Maybe this was one of his angelic duties. Either way, Joshua slept better than he had in weeks.

Waking up was an adventure. At first, he spent a good few minutes with his eyes closed wondering why it was so unbelievably hot under the covers, and then he felt a weight between his arms and tried to remember if he’d won a large bear when they went to the fair last night. Along with the recollection that there hadn’t been a fair in town for months, realization trickled into him slowly, bringing his eyelids apart.

To his great surprise, Seungcheol was facing him head on, and he might’ve felt something soft twist up in his chest if it weren’t for the way Seungcheol snored like a train within the first three seconds of his eyes being open. When he extracted himself, he learned Seungcheol was a heavy sleeper, and he kept that information somewhere in his brain despite not knowing if he would ever need it.

Jeonghan was already standing in the kitchen and taking small sips from a steaming cup of coffee when Joshua arrived. There was a glint in his eyes like he thought he knew something, and Joshua knew exactly what he thought he knew, but he wasn’t going to indulge him this time. Though he had to muster up an inordinate amount of willpower to suppress the exasperated sigh that his lungs so desperately yearned to release, he managed to do it, instead shuffling to the cabinets and pulling out a box of cereal. Jeonghan coughed.

“Morning,” he said with a smirk.

“Morning.” The sweet glory of silence could only last for so long before Jeonghan besmirched it again.

“You sure move fast,” he accused. Joshua raised his eyebrows, but refused on the grounds of self-respect to honor that with a response. “Did you guys already… Well, you must have been pretty quiet, but—”

“What is wrong with you?” Joshua was finally forced to ask, and he sighed heavily when he noted how pleased Jeonghan looked with himself. “Get your stupid nose out of my business and do something useful with it, like sniff out clues and help solve crimes.”

“I’ll have you know my nose is a genius unrecognized in its time,” he scoffed. “And it’ll be staying in your business because that’s where it’s most comfortable. Besides, you’re hopeless and you need my help.”

“Name one way I’m hopeless.”

“You haven’t been on a date since eleventh grade,” Jeonghan informed him, and Joshua pursed his lips.

“Maybe I haven’t wanted to go on a date since eleventh grade,” he argued, but Jeonghan shook his head glumly.

“No use lying to me or yourself.” He tapped the tip of his nose with an index finger. “The nose knows.”

“Whatever,” he grumbled. “It doesn’t matter anyway because Seungcheol and I are just _buddies_ and that’s _all._ ”

“Nobody says ‘buddies’ anymore, you dork.”

“You said it last week, you dick piece of shit.” The cereal box was going to be dented beyond repair at the rate things were going, and Joshua was so caught up in arguing that he forgot he needed to actually open it to pour himself a bowl of its contents. Jeonghan’s only response was a fierce cackle that probably woke their downstairs neighbors up. At least there was no RA to yell at them this time.

As much as Joshua wished he would, Jeonghan refused to chill out to any degree over the next three weeks Seungcheol spent sleeping on their couch, and as much as he wished terrible things would stop almost happening to him, those didn’t seem to tone down any either. At first, he’d thought they were, but that hope was dashed swiftly when he brought it up to Seungcheol.

“Sorry,” he began, bent over an assignment that had to be fake given he wasn’t an actual student at the university, “I wish that were the case, but it’s not.” He laid his pencil down on top of the paper and gave Joshua a somber smile. “It’s just that I’m stopping everything so quickly now that you don’t realize it’s happening.”

“Oh.” He looked intently at the center of the table, at the ring Jeonghan had left there when they first moved in because he refused to use coasters. It never made sense to Joshua why he set his glass down so far away from himself on the table, but he guessed it didn’t matter now since there was a ring on the wood regardless. He guessed it didn’t matter anyway since it was just a table, and he didn’t know why he was thinking about that right now in the first place except for that it didn’t make him feel empty and scared. Seungcheol clasped one of his hands tightly, warm as always.

“It’s okay,” he promised. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” Joshua believed him, but he didn’t want to have to. He just wanted things to be normal again. “I’ll be here until everything’s alright.”

“What if things never go back to normal?”

“Then I’ll be here forever,” he assured him. Something in Joshua’s gut twisted, told him that might not be half bad, but Seungcheol swept it away with a gorgeously large smile. “But I’m sure everything will be right as rain in no time. Don’t worry.”

Joshua wanted to tell him that he couldn’t help but worry, but Jeonghan walked in through the front door at that exact moment, cutting his speech off before it made it out of his throat. He eyed their joined hands with raised eyebrows and a confused smile that quickly transformed into a bright grin, gaze flicking between the two of them until it settled on Joshua in a very unnerving way.

“Afternoon,” he said enthusiastically, then, “I just remembered I had some errands to run, so I’m actually gonna leave again. I might be a while, so don’t wait up to have dinner!” He was gone before he was even finished speaking. Joshua knew for a fact he was going to be a while because he knew he didn’t have any actual errands to run, so all he could do was sigh.

Seungcheol’s fake assignment and Joshua’s real assignment were both finished in a matter of only an hour or two, and as predicted, Jeonghan still wasn’t back. After five minutes of flicking a pencil back and forth across the table, they decided they may as well do something tame like watch TV, so they moved the party to the couch. Seungcheol sat close enough that Joshua could have leaned his head onto one of his shoulders if he wanted to (not that he wanted to) but far enough that Jeonghan wouldn’t be able to say anything if he got home any time soon.

“Oh, wait,” Joshua called as Seungcheol flipped through the guide. “Go back. I love that movie.”

“Ah yeah, you do,” Seungcheol hummed, ticking back to the desired channel. For a moment, Joshua wondered how Seungcheol could have known that, but he was quick in remembering that there was nothing he didn’t know.

“So,” he began a little shyly, not sure why he was even shy in the first place, “you know everything about me, right?” Seungcheol nodded, eyes fixed on the screen. “But what about you?” He turned his attention from the TV, eyes wide.

“What about me?” he asked, flummoxed.

“Yeah, you know, like, I don’t know that much about you,” Joshua explained, “except that you’re my guardian angel.” Seungcheol nodded, but he still didn’t really look like he understood.

“I told you, you can ask me if there’s anything you want to know.”

“But I don’t really have questions,” he mused, “I just wanna know in general, you know? ‘Cause I don’t know anything.” Seungcheol pressed his lips into a flat line. “Well, wait, I do have one question.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you have wings?” The hearty chuckle that rolled out of Seungcheol’s mouth resonated in the center of Joshua’s chest.

“Yes,” he said plainly, “but not when I’m on earth, so you can’t see them.” Joshua’s jaw made contact with the carpet.

“Why not?” he cried.

“Imagine what it feels like to have full-sized wings tear out of your back,” he said, and just the notion sent a visible chill up Joshua’s spine. “Exactly. Not good.” He patted Joshua’s knee sympathetically. “And I’m sorry, but I’m not going to go through that just so you can see what they look like.”

“I guess that’s fine.” The ensuing silence between them rang so loudly that Joshua couldn’t pay attention to the movie, and it compelled him to speak again. “So anyway, about you.” Seungcheol groaned.

“What about me?” He sounded tired. “There’s not really anything. I mean, I’m not really a person.” Something about the way he said it felt like a blow to the chest, something about the implications like a kick to the shins.

“Isn’t there anything you like or something?” he tried, hope draining a little from his tone. _Please, anything. Even if it’s anchovies._ Seungcheol looked to the ceiling in thought, and Joshua hoped that was a good sign.

“Dogs,” he said at last. Joshua exhaled in relief. “I like dogs, I guess.”

“You do?” The excitement in his voice probably came off a little strange and unnecessary, but if Seungcheol thought so, he didn’t bring it up.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Dogs are a lot nicer than most people, you know.” He fixed Joshua with a strange kind of look and a lopsided smile, giving his knee another pat. “You’re a lot nicer than most people, too, even if you don’t think it.”

“I steal Jeonghan’s change from under the couch,” Joshua informed him warily. Seungcheol snorted.

“I know that,” he told him, “and it’s not technically within my jurisdiction to tell you that’s bad. But _aside_ from that, you’re one of the nicest people I’ve seen. There are a few other angels who agree with me on it.”

“Who?”

“What, you’ll know them if I tell you?” Joshua frowned, both because he felt stupid for asking and because he realized he was missing his beloved movie. “Anyway, I’m glad I have you to guard.” He considered it for a few more seconds before adding, “Though my job was a lot easier before you started trying to go out and meet people.”

“Sheesh. My bad, then.” Seungcheol smacked his knee a little too violently.

“I was just _joking_ , Joshy,” he said. “I mean, it’s my only job. I love doing it even when it’s hard.”

“If you say so.” There was an arm pulling him close into Seungcheol’s side before he could think to stop it. By the time he was there, he was too comfortable to want to leave.

“Seriously,” he assured him, patting the top of his head gently. “There’s nothing I’d rather do than keep you safe.”

“Are you just saying that because it’s your job?” He struggled against the hand patting his hair, but it refused to budge.

“I’m saying it because I care about you.” His voice was so sincere, and Joshua’s chest tightened up a lot more than it should have. Progress in thinking of something to say was slow.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to come up with anything, because Jeonghan had impeccable timing, as he always had. He burst through the front door with a wild bang that Joshua was sure the door shouldn’t have made if it was to keep from breaking, but he didn’t have much time to focus on that, because he remembered that he was currently tucked into Seungcheol’s side, and by the look on Jeonghan’s face, he wasn’t failing to notice it. He grinned broadly, hoisting up a bag of groceries too meager to justify the length of his absence.

“I’m back,” he informed them very needlessly. “You two look like you’re having a great time.” Joshua opened his mouth to defend himself at the same time he tried to pull out of the arm encircling him, but Seungcheol barred him from doing either.

“We are,” Seungcheol beamed. “Joshopotamus and I,” and Jeonghan had to slap a hand over his mouth, but it didn’t hide his snort, “were just watching one of his favorite movies.” Jeonghan took a look at the screen in a desperate attempt to distract himself from how much he wanted to laugh. Joshua reminded himself again to tell Seungcheol the nicknames had to stop.

“Seriously?” he groaned, fingers slipping from in front of his mouth. “You’ve seen this movie like a million times, and now you’re making him watch it, too?”

“No, I wanted to watch it,” Seungcheol swore, patting Joshua’s head again unhelpfully. “Want to join us?”

“No, thanks,” Jeonghan sighed. “I’ve already been forced into watching it about thirty times. Besides,” he pulled his phone from his pocket and flicked the screen to life, took a look at the time, “I’ve got to go contemplate whether or not I’m going to drop out and go to school to be a masseuse.” That was a new one. He stalked straight to his room before Joshua could make a comment on it.

A few minutes ticked by in silent viewing before Joshua remembered; it was the muted sounds of Evanescence drifting to his ears from behind Jeonghan’s door that reminded him. “Stop calling me nicknames,” he said. Seungcheol’s jaw went slack, eyes tore from the movie in astonishment. “And also, why are you still holding onto me like I’m a stuffed bear?”

“You don’t like the nicknames?” He was truly agape, and Joshua almost felt bad having to tell him no. Almost.

“They’re terrible, and you’re giving Jeonghan the wrong idea.”

“Why should I be blamed for Jeonghan’s misunderstandings?”

“Because you’re feeding into them?” Seungcheol scoffed. “Do you really like calling me bad nicknames that much?”

“It’s my only source of joy.” Joshua’s eyes went wide. He could open and close his mouth all day, but he wasn’t about to figure out what to say to that. Seungcheol smiled at him sideways, and it made his stomach feel funny. “That was a joke. But yes, I really do like it that much.” Joshua frowned.

“Will you at least let me go, then?” Seungcheol hummed.

“No.” As reinforcement, his arm hugged a little tighter. “This is my other source of joy.” Joshua’s whole body moved with his sigh, but Seungcheol didn’t care. “Don’t act like you don’t benefit from it. You’re always so cold.” Heat crept into Joshua’s cheeks. He hadn’t thought he noticed that. Fingers threaded delicately through his hair. “Besides, you’re soft. Just let me.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. The chuckle that escaped Seungcheol’s lips was very pleased, but Joshua couldn’t bring himself to mind.

A few more weeks passed very quickly. The days grew shorter and the temperatures edged ever closer to single digits and Joshua got so used to having Seungcheol around that he sometimes forgot what it was like not to have arms around him, not to feel that brilliant heat flooding through his body and warming up his bones. He usually remembered what it was like when he went to sleep, when he pulled the covers all the way up to his ears and they still couldn’t keep him as warm as he wanted to be, when the heater was turned up until Jeonghan whined he was sweating but Joshua still shivered in a coat.

He went to bed one night a little earlier than usual, and when he woke up, Seungcheol was gone. Every single corner of the apartment saw him checking twice, but there wasn’t a trace of him anywhere. He even looked under the couch even though he knew there was no way he could be hiding down there, and exactly as predicted, all he found was loose change and a few stale pieces of popcorn.

When he asked Jeonghan if he’d seen him, he acted like he didn’t have a clue what Joshua was talking about, just kept pouring his cereal like he didn’t have anywhere to be. Joshua had always thought he’d get a heads up whenever Seungcheol was going to leave, and he certainly hadn’t expected Jeonghan to lose memory of him completely. He guessed there was a lot that he didn’t really know, and he wished he’d asked those questions when he still had the chance. A look at the clock told him he wasn’t going to class, because how could he bring himself all the way to the lecture hall if he couldn’t even get his eyes to focus on the time? Instead, he dragged himself back to his room to do the only thing he thought he’d be able to let himself do: cry.

Tears dotted his face when he woke up, room still bathed in darkness and clock reading 2:13 AM, just a few hours after he’d gone to bed initially. _Just a dream_ , he told himself, and he tried to slow his breathing and dry his eyes, but he didn’t feel calm again until he went into the living room and saw a form slumped uncomfortably on the couch, snoring like its life depended on it. He padded across the freezing hardwood rested his hand on Seungcheol’s shoulder before he could convince himself not to. Though his fingertips were feather light, he still felt Seungcheol stir, and there was a warm hand covering his own in moments.

“Josh?” he mumbled in obvious confusion, voice low and slow and sleepy. It was almost enough to make him start crying again. “Something wrong?”

“No.” His voice trembled more than he wanted it to, and he could tell Seungcheol heard it by the way he stiffened a little and started to sit up. “I just had a dream that you were…” The sentence choked him in the middle, and it made Seungcheol straighten his back and whip around, hands finding their way from Joshua’s wrists to his shoulders. “You’d tell me if you were leaving, right?”

“Of course.” Thumbs pressed tenderly into the crooks where his neck met his shoulders, and Joshua breathed out a shaky breath, hands moving to capture Seungcheol’s arms at the elbows. “Were you crying?”

Joshua didn’t see any point in answering that question. “Will you come sleep in my bed with me?” he asked instead, trying and failing not to sniffle. “It’s cold.”

“Of course,” Seungcheol repeated, and he was guiding them back to Joshua’s room before a single breath more had been drawn, palms wide and comforting right over his shoulder blades, in the exact same spot he always felt them when Seungcheol used to save him. He wondered if there still hadn’t been any change in the frequency of unfortunate events befalling him and if Seungcheol really was going to leave soon, but he was too tired to ask about it, too cried out to make himself any sadder, too cold to think about anything but how warm it would be in his bed. And it was warm. The warmest, most soothing sleep he’d had in a good while. He dreamt of Seungcheol’s smile, and he woke up feeling like the sun.

There were a lot of things that were better about sharing the bed, even if it was a little cramped with the two of them. For one, Joshua told himself that he was also doing Seungcheol a favor by not forcing him to sleep on the couch, which he knew from experience was stiff and smelled entirely like ass. For two, he had a much easier time getting the rest he needed to have a productive day when he could actually fall asleep, and he had a much easier time actually falling asleep when he was nice and toasty instead of freezing to death. For three, and this was one he didn’t like to focus on, he liked waking up with Seungcheol’s arms around him and seeing his sleeping face just inches away, pretty despite its unawareness, hair sticking up in places it typically lay flat and long eyelashes fanning out in delicate curves. It gave him what high school Jeonghan used to call “heartbeats from the hummingbird of love”. The mental version of Jeonghan who knew about it teased him so much every day that he didn’t even need to tell real Jeonghan that maybe his previously-wrong notions weren’t that wrong anymore.

The bed in Joshua’s room saw its usual nightly burdened doubled every day for a little over a week in a row after that. Jeonghan was suspect as always, but rather than making more accusations, he provided only suggestive eyebrow wiggles over the top of his morning mug of coffee and casual smirks when he watched Seungcheol yawn and stretch on his way out of Joshua’s bedroom. Joshua let him. He was in too good a mood to dampen it by telling Jeonghan to take his knowing nose and find it a less intrusive place to be.

One morning, Joshua was surprised to wake up and find Seungcheol already alert and conscious, eyes open and sparkling but body not stirring. He smiled when he was Joshua’s eyes flutter open ran a hand over his hair gingerly.

“You’re not usually awake when I wake up,” Joshua told him. All of a sudden, something seemed weird and off, and he felt his heart tighten. He hoped it was just a feeling.

“I know,” Seungcheol said. “But I have some good news for you.”

“What is it?” His voice was small and quiet, and he was deeply afraid he knew what the news was and even more afraid that he wasn’t going to think it was good.

“Nothing dangerous has happened for the past few days, so I can get out of your hair soon.” There was the news he knew he didn’t want to hear. Seungcheol’s smile was making it too hard on him.

“How soon?”

“In a day or two.”

Joshua stared at his face a lot longer than he meant to. There were so many things to see. Dimples pressed lightly into plump cheeks, a pronounced freckle just to the side of his nose standing out like the North Star, beautiful full lips that slid closer to a frown with every second Joshua spent staring back in silence. He balled up a fist in Seungcheol’s shirt, fingers tangling around the neckline. Somehow, it was impossible to let go.

“I don’t want you to leave,” he said, softly but firmly. Seungcheol grabbed his wrist but didn’t make any move to tear the hand from his shirt.

“What?”

“I want you to stay here.”

“Why?” Seungcheol’s thumb ghosted in circles where Joshua’s wrist met his hand. Somehow, it felt like they shouldn’t be lying down to talk about this, but neither of them showed any inclination to get up. “You’re safe now. You don’t need me here anymore.”

“But I want you here.” _Don’t cry_ , he told himself, but his eyes weren’t being very obedient. They must have been talking to Jeonghan too much recently. “I love you.” He half choked getting it out, and he full choked when Seungcheol didn’t say anything, only stared back blankly, eyes dark pools that swirled with confusion. Joshua forced the lump in his throat down a little and tried to pull his hand back, but Seungcheol’s grip was relentless. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t love me, but I still—”

“What are you saying?” His gaze was fierce and piercing, and it was heating Joshua’s cheeks up. “Of course I love you,” he said, and he sounded near tears, too. Joshua wondered if angels could even cry. “I can’t do anything _but_ love you. It’s all I was made for.” A stutter in his heartbeat. He hadn’t thought of it like that. “But why would you love me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” There were too many things. The way his smile looked like sunrise and painted everything three shades better, the way he put up with all the annoying things Jeonghan said and all the equally annoying things Joshua said back, the way his arms were like a home. He had a lot of places to go and nowhere to begin, but he didn’t have to, because Seungcheol kissed him.

Was that what heaven tasted like? Even if it wasn’t, his chest felt so full that he wouldn’t have had a hard time convincing himself it was. Time must have been completely frozen; Joshua thought he could see every individual particle of dust in the air, the way the light bent around all of them and bounced between, made the air bright and hazy all at the same time. And then his eyes were closed, but he could still see sunshine, still feel its heat on his cheeks and back, under every cell of skin, burning but never hurting, just like always. The air was sweet when he tasted it again, and he couldn’t tell if it was a genuine sweetness or lingering remnants of Seungcheol on his lips. He opened his eyes wide to find a glimmering pair staring back at him.

“Are you allowed to do that?” he asked. Something about a guardian angel kissing an assigned human felt morally questionable. Seungcheol quirked an eyebrow. “Like, isn’t there a rule against kissing the human you guard?”

“There aren’t as many rules as you would think,” Seungcheol said, eyes crinkling. A wave of déjà vu washed over Joshua in the next few fragile seconds of silence.

“So will you stay?” he asked at length.

“If you really want me to,” Seungcheol said. “I’ll stay until you want me to leave.”

“I really want you to.” Joshua had been just on the verge of adding that he would never want him to leave when he heard the sound of feet squeaking on the floorboards outside his door. He coughed one time, loud and clear, and without further ado, Jeonghan swung the door open and burst in to gaze upon the scene.

“I knew it all along!” he proclaimed boisterously, extending an index finger to point at the couple on the bed. “And you thought you could fool me, the greatest genius of our time.” He raked a hand proudly through his hair and scoffed. “ _You’re_ the fool.”

“Yeah, I’m the fool,” Joshua sighed, sitting up. “Do you need something, or are you just here to be obnoxious?”

“Sorry, what was that? I’ve never heard that word before in my life, and it certainly doesn’t apply to me.” He smiled brightly, backing closer to the door. “But to answer your question, no, I don’t need anything. I just wanted to tell you that I just happened to overhear a tiny sliver of the end of your conversation just now and say congratulations and also congratulate myself on being massively correct the whole time.” His eyes flicked between the two of them expectantly, but neither said anything, so he barked out one laugh. “Well, you two love sailors have a nice morning. Captain Yoon is going to go make himself some coffee.” The door slammed shut behind him a lot more loudly than it needed to, and Joshua knew their neighbor would be over to complain about it later.

“I think I’m missing something with the whole sailor-captain analogy here,” Seungcheol mused. Joshua cringed and sighed at the same time.

“I’ll explain it later,” he told him, but he wasn’t really sure if he wanted to in the first place. He probably never would, even though later could have been any time, but he didn’t care very much. If an angel could lie, he should get to lie with one.

**Author's Note:**

> OH BOY.. THERE'S CHEOLSOO...  
> hey y'all what's up. i wanted to write a guardian angel au and i wanted josh to be the one being guarded so here is this mess!! i very much hope you enjoyed reading it, and i sincerely thank you for reading through the whole thing (or at the very least, skipping to the author's note and only reading that). i wasn't sure how well i'd be able to do this pair, but i hope it's not too disappointing!! shout out 2 jeonghan for being there also as the swell guy he is... u rule.  
> as always, feedback is greatly appreciated!! thank you once again for reading!


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